FLINDERS QUARTET
Elizabeth Sellars • violin
Sulki Yu • guest violin
Helen Ireland • viola
Zoe Knighton • cello

AGATHA YIM, POLYPHONIC PICTURES filming and editing
THOMAS GRUBB, MANO MUSICA sound engineering, editing and mastering

Filmed November 2025 at Tempo Rubato, Brunswick

This project was made possible through support from The Ian Potter Foundation, Creative Victoria, Besen Family Foundation, and FQ’s Fifth String donors

NAOMI DODD b. 1997
SPARK & STILLNESS composed 2025

Program note:

“When visiting the staff and patients at Cabrini hospital, we asked them of the impact music had in their lives and what sort of music they wanted to listen to.

Some people wanted calm and relaxing music while others, music that was lively and upbeat.

Others expressed a desire for the music to transport them to another place, and to captivate their imagination.

In writing Spark & Stillness, I have sought to capture these two contrasting ideas.

Spark is a lively and vibrant work with shimmering textures and dancing melodies.

Stillness is a time for calm and tranquility. The work begins and ends with a cello solo which I hope captivates the imagination and evokes a sense of peace.

At Cabrini Hospital, the horizon was visible from all the windows, a visual constant around us. So too music is our constant - a retreat we can visit, at any time and in any circumstance, and whether we are craving spark or stillness.”

Emotional connection with listeners through sensitive, passionate and inspired music is at the heart of Naomi Dodd’s work. Her place in the Australian composition world is rapidly being established, with works having been commissioned by leading ensembles around the country.

In 2024, Naomi was Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s Cybec Young Composer in Residence for which she wrote and had premiered three orchestral works. Naomi is currently one of four composers selected to participate in the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra’s Australian Composers’ School throughout 2024-2025.

Naomi’s musical style draws from impressionist, romantic and modern Australian influences, while her inspiration is deeply connected to her emotional sensitivities with compositions often reflecting Naomi’s experiences and impressions of subjects such as Australian landscapes and coastlines, home and the human experience. Her work ranges from intensely passionate and colourful moments to gentle fragments echoing the ethereal.

Since graduating from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 2019 with a Bachelor of Music Composition, Naomi has had works commissioned and performed by many notable ensembles and artists such as Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Omega Ensemble, Australian guitarists Matt Withers and Callum Henshaw, Ku-ring-gai Philharmonic Orchestra, Penrith Symphony Orchestra, Awesöme Orchestra Collective (California), Symphony of the Redwoods (California),

Northern Beaches Orchestra, Balmain Sinfonia, SCM Modern Music Ensemble and Geist String Quartet.

Naomi’s belief that all people possess an innate potential for musical appreciation shapes her desire to create music that reaches and impacts all who listen.